One Good Turn
by Annex-Writer
Summary: This was originally my final project for my English 2100 class in college. We had to pick a character from one of the books we read and write a letter in their voice concerning a major plot point. A letter from the afterlife. Slight spoilers for book.


_"Dream Letter" from Elfaba_

_To Dorothy from __the Afterlife_

Little Girl,

As many may be aware of by now, I am no longer living. I see that you have made it back to what you call your "home" – how I am able to see all of this or even communicate with you is beyond me. I have never really believed in the concept of "souls" and an"afterlife", but I digress.

You may think that what you did was all an accident but I have come to realize that nothing in my life was ever an accident as much as an intentional bother to prevent me from having any real happiness for any long span of time. What happened to me by your hand was not an accident – your intentions may have been pure but the outcome wasn't – it was the final twist in my resentful fate (if there is such a thing) and all with the ironic churn of a mock-baptism.

I have not experienced much in this life that has made me happy – what friends I managed to make did not remain as such and did not stay innocent or true (which I suppose I wanted more than I ever allowed myself to admit), what love I had was quickly taken from me in a violent fashion (which usually resulted in death) and any chance I have ever had to procure some satisfaction for my own person has somehow always managed to elude me no matter the efforts I put forth.

I tell you all of this not to make you feel more guilt-ridden than you already do in that child's heart of yours; I say it so you will understand that your light and exuberance for life was immediately in stark contrast to my own for reasons that you never really had the chance to hear…This was no fault of yours and I didn't give you that when I met you. Just as I didn't give you the forgiveness you asked of me.

Was I going to give it to you? Perhaps – perhaps not. I was not quite in the right mind that day – so much had happened, so many revelations made and too many hopes crushed for me to want to give forgiveness of any kind, least of all to a child whom everyone "adored" and deemed "the Goddess of Gifts".

But that may be too malicious of me because despite how much your persona disgusted my own and your dog annoyed me (which holds a kind of irony considering how much I care for animals) you are innocent from committing any wrongful deed because of the total obliviousness of your actions and what they would result in. Lack of sleep is also to blame for such foolishness on my part. But how could I give something that at that point and time I could not feel in me? I felt devoid of any and all emotion but fury and hopelessness…

I seem to be rambling but I do have a point, Dorothy from Kansas. I wish that I could have given you what you asked for – for I have desired such a thing too and know the weight of such guilt, I have seen it in the way you hold your shoulders. I was denied it when my judge/granter of forgiveness died. Such has been your plight, as well.

And here is where I make a declaration I doubt I would have ever made alive: you and I are very much alike, Dorothy Gale.

We seem to suffer the same fate of enduring blows that hurt more than we let show. I have always asked why I was so cursed to be different – why was I doomed to a life of emotional solitude and social spectacle? I have felt like a pawn for some absurd force's amusement all my life – whether it be my skin color, my ultra-devout and condescending parents, my reckless school days going up in asunder, my lover (the only one I ever had) dying, denied the forgiveness my heart desired more than anything else after his death, the only symbol of my fathers unconditional love denied to me and then my fate sealed by one who did not deserve a fate so cruel as to have death plague her steps…

For that seems to be the case with you, child – death plagues you. I am not meaning to be cruel but just as plain and straightforward as I have been since the beginning of my life and as you have been ever since yours began… Both of us have had to be this way because of what we have weathered – you lost your parents to a force that has given me nightmares, you endure and accept the inadequacies your world has dealt you and are even transported to a land that is beyond you in practically every way while being separated from the only family you have been granted to have…

You came from nothing but love and went back to nothing but the love remained. Something I have never really known the way you do – but perhaps that is why you are able to be the way you are and remain sincere in your entirety….I have a respect for that – even if I despise any notion of savior children…

You are not my "savior", child, so don't even entertain the notion. I never thought I needed to be saved or that I even had a soul to have saved, for that matter.

But if your name serves any purpose for you and being a "Goddess of Gifts"…I will state that you gave me something – other than playing an unwitting hand in my demise (and you most certainly did not give me what I wanted because that absurd twitter-head, Glinda, stuck them to your damned feet!).

Instead you gave me something that I wasn't ever expecting nor ever willing to openly claim (which the one time I did caught me completely unawares): a soul.

You let me know that I, ultimately, did and still do have a soul.

It was made clear right before I seemed to pass away from the world I had known to this place…Which I cannot describe with any coherency so I won't bother.

So, little girl, if you gave me any kind of gift it was not peace – but a small peace of mind.

I will thank you for that. And since you finally enabled me to solve a problem I have been struggling with all me life, I suppose one good turn deserves another.

You have my forgiveness.

Signed, Elphaba –

the "Wicked Witch" of the West


End file.
